Showing Your Home

First Impressions are Lasting Impressions. The exterior of your home often determines how buyers will view the interior, so:

Make sure your front entrance is clean and inviting.

Paint or replace your front door if it's faded or worn.

Add some paint to shutters, trim and any other outside features showing signs of wear.

Accentuate the Positive. "How we live in a home and how we sell a home are often two different things." Try to see your home with a fresh perspective and arrange each room to bring out its best attributes, including:

Keep windows and floors clean.

Replace faded wallpaper and glue any areas that have come away from the wall.

In the bathroom, remove any unnecessary items from countertops, tubs, shower stalls and commode tops. Keep only your most needed cosmetics, brushes, perfumes, etc., in one small group on the counter. Coordinate towels to one or two colors only.

Rearrange or remove some of the furniture if necessary. As owners, many times we have too much furniture in a room. This is wonderful for our personal enjoyment, but when it comes to selling, we need to thin out as much as possible to make rooms appear larger.

Take down or rearrange certain pictures or object on walls. Patch and paint if necessary.

In General Try to look at your house "through the buyer's eyes" as though you've never seen it or been there before. Any time or money spent on these items will bring you back more money in return, and hopefully a faster sale.

Nine Minute Showing Drill

Occasionally you will receive a call to schedule a showing to take place within the next few minutes. The following is a checklist for this type of panic:

Sound: Turn off the television and tune the radio (low volume) to a soft rock, middle of the road or classic rock station.

Sight: Turn on every light in the house (day or night) and open every drape and blind (day time only).

Odors: Heat some frozen pastry slowly in the oven or heat a pan on the stove and then drop in a few drops of vanilla.

Goodbye: Sorry, but this is the single most important thing you can do in a showing to help sell your home! Even if the showing agent insists that it is okay to stay, you must leave. Buyers must get emotionally committed to your home to buy it and they cannot become emotional about "their new home" if you, the current owners, are "hanging around." Please, at the very least, go into the backyard. Even better, go to the store.